DOGMATISM OF THE STATIONARY PERIOD. 345 



who had been of opinion 25 , "que le dit Ramus 

 avoit te te'meraire arrogant et impudent; et que 

 parcequ'en son livre des animadversions il reprenait 

 Aristotle, estait evidemment connue et manifeste 

 son ignorance." The books are then declared to 

 be suppressed. It was often a complaint of pious 

 men, that theology was corrupted by the influence 

 of Aristotle and his commentators. Petrarch says* 6 , 

 that one of the Italian learned men conversing 

 with him, after expressing much contempt for the 

 apostles and fathers, exclaimed, " Utinam tu Aver- 

 roen pati posses, ut videres quanto ille tuis his 

 nugatoribus major sit!" 



When the revival of letters began to take place, 

 and a number of men of ardent and elegant minds, 

 susceptible to the impressions of beauty of style 

 and dignity of thought, were brought in contact 

 with Greek literature, Plato had naturally greater 

 charms for them. A powerful school of Platonists 

 (not Neoplatonists) was formed in Italy, including 

 some of the principal scholars and men of genius 

 of the time ; as Picus of Mirandula in the middle, 

 Marsilius Ficinus at the end, of the fifteenth cen- 

 tury. At one time, it appeared as if the ascen- 

 dancy of Aristotle was about to be overturned; 

 but, in physics at least, his authority passed un- 

 shaken through this trial. It was not by disputa- 

 tion that Aristotle could be overthrown; and the 

 Platonists were not persons whose doctrines led 



23 Launoy, p. 132. 2 < Hallam, M. A., iii. 536. 



